An anonymous spokesperson for BP has confessed that the gigantic oil company responsible for the catastrophic Gulf of Mexico oil spill, “was never very good at math.”

More arty than mathy.

“Originally we thought the oil spill was only 5,000 barrels of oil a day, which is only like, what, 210,000 gallons? No biggie. But we looked again recently and darn if that pesky leak isn’t closer to 70,000 to 100,000 barrels of oil a day gushing into the Gulf of Mexico. Whoopsie daisy! Our bad.”

The anonymous source laughed nervously and ignited a Pall Mall cigarette with the tip of his finger.

“Frankly, math and science were always our weak suit. In school, BP people excelled in arts and language. We’ve been writing beautifully expressive poetry to frame the emotional impact of the spill– you know, pristine white doves being transformed to look like crows, that kind of thing– but to quantify it, or find scientific ways to stop the leak, well, we leave that to the eggheads and nerds. It’s not our bag, man.”

Although the company has been stumped for over a month in finding a solution to capping the leak, the shadowy source said that the BP Bohemian Arts Division has found the tragic oil spill to be a rich source for artistic expression. “It’s really charged our creative juices, and we’re thinking of doing an collector’s edition book of our artistic work to sell through BP retail channels. We’ll probably even offer a discount with fill-ups because we want our customers to know just how much we care.”